Maria Callas La Scala

Callas's second studio recording of La Gioconda was made in 1959, six years after her last stage performances of the role, which in 1947 has been the vehicle for her Italian debut (at the Arena di Verona).The recording came at a turning point in Callas's life - when her relationship with Aristotle Onassis led to her separation from her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. Writing in Gramophone in 1960, Philip Hope-Wallace said: 'I simply cannot imagine anyone getting more out of the role than she does this time…the total effect is riveting.' Joining Callas were two young Italian singers destined for great careers: the mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Cossotto as her rival, Laura, and, as the sinister Barnaba, baritone Piero Cappuccilli.

The character of Gioconda is one of the most tragic in the whole history of Italian opera: an altruistic cantatrice who sacrifices everything, to the death, to secure the escape of the man she loves with her rival. Who was better suited than Maria Callas to assume such a role? La Gioconda, the only opera by Ponchielli that has not fallen into neglect, is a stunning transitional work between Verdian romanticism and verismo. La Divina particularly liked this opera.

The character of Gioconda is one of the most tragic in the whole history of Italian opera: an altruistic cantatrice who sacrifices everything, to the death, to secure the escape of the man she loves with her rival. Who was better suited than Maria Callas to assume such a role? La Gioconda, the only opera by Ponchielli that has not fallen into neglect, is a stunning transitional work between Verdian romanticism and verismo. La Divina particularly liked this opera.

Maria Callas was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy. Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

The amazing success of Maria Callas was not only related to her unique voice, but also to her stunning scenic charisma. The alchemy of the magnetic duets she shared with the elite of male Italian singing, then at its apex, have contributed to the legend of the Scala evenings. This collection of the most moving duets in Italian opera features such singers as Giuseppe Di Stefano, Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker and Tito Gobbi.

It was as Ponchielli's long-suffering ballad singer, La Gioconda, that Callas made her Italian debut, in 1947 at the Arena di Verona, and it proved crucial to her career. Five years later, La Gioconda became her first studio recording of a complete opera. It showcases both the dark-hued splendour of her voice at this period - she was still in her twenties - and her inimitable intensity and insight.

Until she achieved a triumph in the delicate coloratura role of Elvira in I puritani - in Venice in 1949 under the tutelage of maestro Tullio Serafin - Maria Callas had been making her name in dramatic roles, such as the epically scaled title role in Die Walküre, which she had been singing just days before. Her success in Bellini's final opera set her firmly on the path to bel canto supremacy. Joining her as Arturo in this 1953 recording is one of her best-loved colleagues, the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano.

The role of Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore was one that Maria Callas performed some 20 times in the theatre, and this recording was her leave-taking of it. Callas's Leonora was praised by the critics for its vocal and dramatic artistry. Cecil Smith in Opera magazine said: "For once we heard the trills fully executed, the scales and arpeggios tonally full-bodied but rhythmically bouncing and alert, the portamentos and long-breathed phrases fully supported and exquisitely inflected".